Her Brother, Her Mate

Hadley POV

The infuriating brothers showed up at 11:45, pestering me until I agreed to leave for lunch early. Mitchel went as far as getting his mother to come over and tell me I could leave early. She was thoroughly amused when I started yelling and beating on them with my fly swatter for disturbing her about something so childish.

I was already upset at having to clean up my office after their little, ‘let’s tease the human with our weird mystical bond’ game. They were doing the same thing to get me to leave early and I had had enough.

Now, we’re on our way to some fancy Greek restaurant, and I’m sitting in the backseat ignoring both of them, still fuming about their immaturity.

“This place has really great stuffed grape leaves and tomato fritters,” Mark tells me, trying to get me to talk to him.

“They have a decent wine list too,” Mitch adds.

“I am not drinking. I have work I need to get back to,” I tell them, thrusting my chin up in the air.Content protected by Nôv/el(D)rama.Org.

“Ah, but mom said you didn’t have to come back. She said to take the afternoon off,” Mitch pouts at me.

“If you guys are going to be like this, I’m going to refuse to see you during the work day. I have a feeling your mother would be more than willing to ban you both from stepping foot back in the offices.”

Mitchel’s pouty face and Mark’s sad eyes tugged at that festering mate bond in me, urging me to comfort them even though in my head all I wanted was to do the opposite. I tighten my arms across my chest, forcing them to stay in place so I don’t reach out to them.

“So, are there any questions you have about the whole werewolf thing?” Mitch asks. “Or about the mate bond?”

I had a lot of questions. Too many questions. Simone did a good job answering most of them, but I started freaking out with each new bit of information and it got tiring after a while. The whole ‘marking’ thing seems barbaric. When I told Simone that, Vincent started snickering for some reason.

“Why doesn’t your mom have one of those bite marks on her neck?”

“Dad’s a human,” Mark explains, “Well, a witch, but still a human. He can’t mark her.”

“Did she mark him?” I asked. It seems unfair that she can claim him that way, but he can’t do the same to her.

“No. He didn’t want her to for some reason. Something about how her DNA would change his.”

“Mom had a hard time conceiving because they were in no way marked. She had to get outside help,” Mitch added to what his brother said.

“So, if I want to have kids I have to let you both mark me?” That seems unfair. If I can’t mark them, I don’t want them to mark me.

“Well, you would have a hard time getting pregnant. It’s how the moon goddess prevents us from mating with other races that aren’t our mates. Our secret would easily get out if we were to accidentally knock up humans all the time. We have higher s*x drives because of the beast in us, and most werewolves choose not to sleep around within the pack because we don’t want to ruin things for our future mates. Our friends Carli and Parker had a s**t time figuring out their weird mate bond situation because of that.”

I sigh. This Carli girl again. Simone said something about her mate bond last night too. I don’t want Mitch to keep talking about her, but I’m also very curious now.

“Why?”

“Well,” Mitch looks at his brother with a smirk, “Carli is mated to her step-brother, who also happens to be our Alpha.”

My eyes bug out of my head. “Her step-brother? How did that happen?”

“Parker’s dad knocked some she-wolf up before becoming Alpha. Because of him being alpha, and Parker being a boy, he had to take Parker’s mom as his mate. At his inauguration ceremony, Carli’s mom, Mary, was the event coordinator at the resort at that time. She planned the event and Alpha Jared, Parker’s dad, discovered that Mary was his fated mate. Because he had already taken a chosen mate, he had to reject her.

“A few years later, Mary started dating the pack’s Gamma, Thomas Childes, and they were even serious enough to talk about becoming chosen mates. Mary got pregnant with Carli at that time, and then when Parker’s mother died, Alpha Jared came back to claim Mary before Tommy could,” Mark explains.

“Since she was already pregnant, she decided to pretend the baby was Alpha Jared’s and not Tommy’s, but Carli is very much Gamma Tommy’s daughter. They are a carbon copy of each other. Mary and Jared treated her like s**t too. Pissed us and everyone else off. Carli and Parker grew up thinking they were half-siblings. When Parker turned 18 and could find his mate, he discovered it was Carli.

“They were really close, Parker really being the only family she had to depend on, but when he found out, he shunned her. He thought something was wrong with him for being mates with his sister. Our mate bond is absolute. It’s like gravity, pulling you to that person. He ended up leaving her for four years because he was scared he would hurt her. It was a major fuckfest for both of them.”

“Why was he scared he would hurt her?” I asked.

“The bond pushes us to mark and mate. Carli is 4 years younger than Parker. She was 14 when he found out they were mates.”

“Oh,” is all I can say. How scary would it be to think you were mated to your own sister? “They’re mates now, though. Right? How did he come to accept her?”

Mark smiled mischievously. “Us. Well, Matt. Our mom knew they weren’t b***d related. Most of the pack knew Tommy and Mary dated, and thought Carli was Tommy’s. Parker went back home because he couldn’t fight the bond any more and Matt told him what our mom had always told us. That they were step-siblings, not half-siblings like he thought. He won her over but she gave him a hell of a time. It was fun to watch.”

Mitch laughs at his brother’s words.

“So, do you both feel that way towards me?” I asked hesitantly. “Do you both feel the need to mark and mate me?”

“Oh yeah,” they say at the same time. Hearing that should have offended me, but instead I felt this burning desire for it. I want them to claim me. I want them to be mine and mine alone.

“Why haven’t you, then?”

“First, you’re human, and you knew nothing about our world,” Mitch said.

“And you didn’t seem to want anything to do with me,” Mark added.

“Then there’s the whole binding on our magic. If we are intimate with you and accidently siphon more magic than your body can handle, it could hurt you. You being a seer and us being witch/wolf hybrids with our magic bound is forcing us to wait until our father can unbind us.”

The whole seer thing is still crazy to me. The fact that I’m descended from fairy royalty seems almost impossible. That explains my eyes.

That also explains why my mom, who I guess is really my aunt, would tell me I was special, with divine eyes or royal eyes. These eyes and the genes they come from are the reason I was being forced to marry Zeki.

I thought Mark, and maybe even Mitch were a lot like Zeki, selfish playboys, but they are nothing like that a*****e. They may be immature, but they have not forced anything on me. If this mate bond is as strong as everyone claims, it should be almost impossible for them to resist doing those things with me; mating and marking. They are holding back for my sake. They are putting me before their own needs and desires.

They may be driving me crazy, but they are still putting me first.

“We’re here,” Mark calls out as he pulls into a parking spot.

Mitch opens my door for me, then I surprise him by linking my fingers through his hand after he helps me out. His elation was radiating off him. Coming around the car, Mark’s face turns to jealousy seeing my hand in his brothers. I giggle lightly, then wrap my arm around his waist, smiling up at his surprise before he snakes his arm around my shoulders, hugging me to him.

“Let’s go eat.”